


where purged of wilderness, homesickness, prowling

by caelestes



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: F/M, Isolation, Pining, Visions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-12
Updated: 2019-10-12
Packaged: 2020-12-09 17:34:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,409
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20998685
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/caelestes/pseuds/caelestes
Summary: There’s a pull. In his gut. A string connecting him to something, somewhere,someone.





	where purged of wilderness, homesickness, prowling

**Author's Note:**

> This is based off of the _Age of Resistance: Supreme Leader Snoke_ comic which was released recently, so pre-warning for coercion, emotional manipulation, and physical abuse. Also for Ben’s POV—which features unhealthy self-image.

“Hush.” The cadence is soft, gentle. Assuring. Ben needs gentle. He needs a place to land. “Don’t concern yourself with them.” _Them_. Splattered paints and paper in a senatorial box. A rusted heap of flying metal. A teacher’s guiding hand—a lightsaber, a murderer’s weapon at his throat. _No_. _Stop_. _Breathe_. “Just the here—” fingers on his neck like ice “—and the now.”

It’s embarrassing. This need to be coddled. 

Ben knows his new master’s voice. Recognizes the dips and curves of it. The inflections of the consonants and vowels. It’s been there since before he can remember. Since before his first thought.

He’s not stupid.

He’s not.

_Inept_. That was a constant, a term laid with brutal repetition when he was sent to his uncle. Before Snoke was Snoke. When he was just an itch in the back of his mind. When he was dropped off like refuse. Garbage. His mother fulfilled the role of a mentor to interns in her service as a God would answer a prayer. His father flocked to fellow rising pilots. And Ben had never been able to fit into a clean box like those model youths they attracted as honey to wasps.

So it was a backwoods budding academy for him. And a recluse of a relative. And fellow students he didn’t know how to interact with.

_Problem_. That was another. He was a problem, was already aware. But that voice, that itch, reminded him. “Organa, passing you down to her benevolent Jedi brother. He’s too full of love for her to refuse. It’s the easiest way to be rid of you. A thorn in her side—not astute enough to be a politician, too raucous to be a true academic. All that’s left for you is the Force. Unfortunate that Skywalker will never be able to offer you adequate instruction.” A pause. A sigh. “Quite pathetic.”

And Ben would swallow the sharp sting rising in his throat.

“You’re not weak, are you?” There’s a mild wash to Snoke’s tone. Boredom. He’s been a disappointment.

“No,” Ben says, resolute. He wants, so badly, more than he’s ever yearned for anything, to prove himself. He gets to his feet. “I’m not.”

His father was as Force-sensitive as a stone. And when Ben did hone it, he could swear he saw confusion in Han’s eyes, maybe even hurt.

Never in public, though. That was an exacting rule in his youth. And when Ben asked why he was told that it was, “A special thing, a beautiful thing, you don’t just share it with anyone.” But he could sense a sickening lurch. Trepidation. Fear.

There were times when Ben was certain he scared him.

It’s when his wrist shatters that he sees. His form incorrect, his master’s boot hitting the bone. The give. The spilt. _Her_. She’s nearly transparent in his peripheral. A specter of gauze and linen. Lying on her side similar to him, curled in on herself, mimicking being held by a loved one. Only she’s sleeping. And he’s bent in pain like a coward.

There’s nothing around her. She appears suspended in his environment. And Ben’s certain he’s hallucinating. Daydreaming of a girl.

Never even been kissed. Can’t even take a broken wrist in stride.

She fades so quickly from his view.

“I want to see everything,” Snoke says. “What’s happening—in here.” He taps Ben’s forehead for emphasis. There are parts of himself he’s sequestered away. The color in his mother’s eyes. The effortless strength in his father’s arms when he’d lift him up. The smell of Chewbacca’s fur. Uncle Lando’s presents when he visited.

A ghost of a girl he conjured up.

“Open,” Snoke demands.

And Ben—he does.

(The look on his master’s face when he comes upon the memory of what Ben believed to be a hallucination means nothing to him at the time.

But later—seven years later, to be exact—it snaps into place. When his feelings for Rey are laid bare in red in a decadent throne room. Splayed, cut with surgical precision. Treated as something to mock. A joke.

His master always was clinically astute.)

There’s a pull. In his gut. A string connecting him to something, somewhere, _someone_. It sounds macabre, insane.

But Ben knows the Force contains mysteries in multitudes.

She’s digging. Ben’s ears register the scratch and pull of the earth being raked through. He can feel the grit underneath fingernails that aren’t his own. He walks across this dreamscape. An involuntary shudders wracks through him. _This is real_.

This vision. This girl.

He can see sweat on her brow. Hair sticking in matted tendrils to her skin. She’s soaking. There’s a painful heat at his—_her_—back. Bereft of any respite, the only water in sight is gathering at her irises. A frustrated hiccup makes its way from her throat. Ben’s heart lurches. 

A tinny shriek, and the girl lifts her victim from its hiding place in the ground. A skittermouse attempting to burrow away. The girl clutches it in a vice grip. “Sorry,” she tells it, mournful. And then she snaps its neck. The creature stops moving, and Ben can feel the hungry pit of the girl’s stomach calling out for the meager meal she’s secured for herself. She’s desperate. She’s starving.

_Where are you? _His mind calls out, but there’s no answer.

“Who are you?” His master asks.

He’s silent. His tongue is thick in his mouth. He’d like to know.

“I’ll tell you.” An announcement, generous. An arc of white lightening. “But first you’ll have to earn it.”

_Ky_-_lo __Ren_.

Sound the syllables out slow.

Hello, goodbye.

Kylo wakes in intervals. Mouth bone dry, blood caked, muscle weary. The material world starting to settle. And he becomes aware, brain sluggish and thoughts slow moving due to the pain, again and again, of where he is. What’s been done to him. _Is _being done to him. What _he’s _allowed. The shame is so much.

Eyes scrunching shut. _Don’t think_. _Don’t think_. _Don’t think_. He’s a boy. Twenty-two and still a child who can’t take a hit. He’s sure his father could. _Knows _his father could. He’s never been as strong as Han Solo. He’s never been as strong as anyone or anything that’s come before or will come after and he’s a _Skywalker _and who would ever want a joke for a son, who would ever want a nephew such as him? It makes sense for Luke to have done what he did. _Stop_. _Don’t think_.

He lets the tide take him.

The water stops with her. The dark eases. He stares through unconsciousness, through time. Her spine bends as she lifts a rusted metal beam off a sandy turf. Her chest concaves and fills, short breaths bringing attention to her exertion. Her arms shake with effort and she coughs. There’s red on her forehead, her cheeks. She sways, and Kylo thinks she might pass out. But she doesn’t. She’s strong. He doesn’t know her, but he knows this.

He’d like some of her strength.

He’d like to get to know her. He’d like to ask her name.

He doesn’t know when _Mother _became _Organa _and when _Father _became _Solo _and when _Uncle _became _Skywalker_.

They’re constructs now.

They left him.

Definitions shift.

His blade bleeds, sparks spitting red fire, and he admits he must let go of childish things. Attachments—including her. But he’s still wondering, curious, and she’s so very… the grim line of his mouth purses. He tried to reach for her once, when she was turned to him and he saw her etching a thin line into his bedroom wall with a sharpened sliver of metal. One to join thousands. Tallies upon tallies with no context.

A hesitant overture when he went towards her form, only for his fingers to dip through her shoulder as though she was a hologram. And then she disappeared like so much smoke, taking her markings with her and leaving the expanse of his quarters a smooth lacquered black again.

Kylo can’t grasp why the Force is doing this. When there’s seemingly no point—and no end.

His master would not be pleased if he found out. He’d discipline him. And he’d in all likelihood kill her; whoever she is, wherever she is. 

He tilts his head towards his chest. He breathes. He tries to empty his mind.

And Kylo—ignoring that string, that pull—he lets go.

**Author's Note:**

> A huge thank you to [maplemood](https://archiveofourown.org/users/maplemood) for looking over this and offering edits, suggestions, and encouragement!


End file.
